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Is a passphrase enough to store your coins? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by ashketchup422@alien.top to c/ethereum@blockchained.world

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I always read about public keys,private keys and speedphrases that you need to store them in a paper wallet or hardware wallet. The only thing I ever stored are the passphrases (those 12 or 24 words) I get from metamask or other wallet provider in the beginning of creating a wallet. Is this enough when I write them down and secure them?

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[–] KoreanJesusFTW@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Hi OP.

A cold wallet is a wallet that's never been exposed online.

I'd say that the other kind of wallets come in "levels of heat".

I personally wouldn't use any wallet that is in a Windows environment; be it a standalone app or a browser extension. I would even extend to saying that this kind of wallet is just about as "hot" as an exchange wallet (which is always custodial). The only way I would use a wallet on a PC is if the OS is Linux.

Some will say to go the hardware wallet route. Here, you are trusting the manufacturer. With the recent Ledger fiasco, this a huge NO for me as well.

If you are simply storing (multisig wallets aside), an airgapped Linux PC or an airgapped Cell Phone with MEW OFFLINE is by far the best option. MEW is fully audited and open-source. So long as you are downloading a hash verified MEW and the Offline PC that you are using to generate your seed phrase/keystore/private keys is clean, you are very safe.

Create the wallet, note the generated public address, remove it, then try to restore it and compare to see if the generated public address is the same. When storing them coins, send a bit first and check first before sending the rest.

Take care.